OurBank is an initiative of Mahiti. The thought for the product stemmed from the fact there does not exist a true 'open source' micro-finance software, which caters to the needs of all sections of MFIs and in particular small and medium-sized groups to encourage their growth.
Small
and medium sized MFI's and SHG networks face major challenges in
maintaining records which meet both financial requirements of efficiency
and transparency as well as meeting their goal of social development.
Background:
Today's
MFIs (Micro Financial Institutions) and SHG (Self-Help-Groups) networks
have to face numerous challenges when using IT systems to enhance their
service quality, service choices and to extend their reach.
These include:
- Proprietary software tools are expensive.
- Home-grown (custom designed) software solutions often fail and when installed do not scale to match institutional growth
- The software vendor's understanding is limited to the banking part of the solution and they fail to appreciate and understand the need for solutions which encompass social perspectives
- Employing and retaining skilled IT manpower is a challenge
- The currently claimed ‘open-source’ solutions are not truly open and as a result have failed to build a community around them.
OurBank aims to:
“Create
a micro-banking application that will suit the requirements of the
sector in India and bring together a strong community of open-source
enthusiasts interested in developing applications for the micro-credit
sector. The resulting application will ultimately benefit millions of
mainly rural poor.”
OurBank is:
- Free of charge
- User Friendly
- Scalable
- Built within the FOSS philosophy
- A collective effort of product experts in the field
- Easily adaptable to the changing environment
- Inherent capacity of localisation
- Transparent
- Secure
OurBank can be configured to work in following scenarios:
- SHG/ JLJ
- MFI
- Federation
The existing features of OurBank are summarised as follows,
1.Create hierarchy of offices
2.Create different level of offices
3.Define rules and attributes of a bank, like accounting standards and their codes
4.Define types of bank product categories
5.Define types of products in each category
6.Define types of fee with specifications
7.Define bank types of interest for different types of bank products
8.Define the fee and interest calculation procedure for all kinds of transaction
9.Create different kinds of roles of activities in the bank
10.Recruit staff with their details
11.Designate the staff with specific bank activities
12.Register the clients in a specific office
13.Can create a group of clients to form a group account
14.Client registration will be approved in different stages
15.Create different kinds of accounts based on the bank product categories like loans and savings
16.Also can create multiple accounts with different criteria
17.Deposit the amount from the client to their respective account number.
18.Loan accounts will get approved at different levels
19.Savings can also be made in groups with a group savings account
20.Group savings will be deposited in a group account
21.Approved loan will be disbursed
22.Loan repayment will be in different wayskinds
23.Mention non-working days for the bank, and the alternate transaction calculation for the day
24.Adjustment of loans with savings details
25.Define the rate concession in interest during the period of repaying the loan amount
26.Define the properties for the multiple loan events
27.Create ‘black-list’ of clients from their transactions.
28.REPORTS (Models) with graphical presentation
- Total savings of individual/ bank-wise
- Total loans of individual/ bank-wise
- Total outstandings/ bank-wise
- Total receipts/ bank-wise
- Total receipts vs outstandings (like trail Balance sheet
- Total interest recovered/ bank-wise
- Total interest actuals/ bank-wise
- Total outstanding interest/ bank-wise
Additional features released in Ourbank version 2.0
OurBank has just become more better than ever with the addition of the following new features
- Unified ADM concept in all modules of Ourbank
- SMS integration for the transactions
- Plug-in features in each of the module
- Enhancement in member details
- Ledger maintenance for financial transactions
- Standard report templates for financial and general information
- 25+ types of reports generation with PDF export option
- Reports generation with graphs and geo-coded maps
For more details on OurBank please contact us at ourbank@mahiti.org or you can reach us at + 91 99002 89502, +91 96119 15434